Chocolate Bourbon Torte, The Top

Whether you like Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” or Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer” when you’re in the mood, you’re going to want to pull it up on your playlist (or slide the record onto the turntable), and then turn the lights down low for this piece of deliciousness.

You’re more than welcome to eat the Chocolate Bourbon Torte while you’re at The Top, but chances are, you’re too full from dinner. We usually have a piece to go, and carry it home with us for later. In private. Yes, with the lights down low.

It’s a sinfully dense chocolate cake base with a thick, gooey, caramely, bourbony, nutty layer of rich filling and a thick skin of dark chocolate icing. If it sits at room temperature long enough, the nutty filling starts to ever-so-slowly ooze out the sides and drool at glacial speed down the sides of the cake. I doubt you can leave it sit that long though. It whispers from its to-go box. Possibly in French. Venir ici. Le lécher. Le dévorer…

One piece is enough to share between two people because it is so rich and dense. And of course sharing requires you to sit quite close to each other. We don’t generally look for excuses to get close, but bringing a piece of torte home is a treat.

One night I lost control of the to-go box and the cake rolled free along the floor of the car, gathering lint from the rug before I could rescue it. I swear I was not drinking that night. An accident, pure and simple. The Man looked properly sad at the loss.

I still ate it. After attempting to remove some of the lint of course. I at it for breakfast the next morning, after he had gone to work to avoid his eye-rolling. It was luxurious. And for once it was all mine!